I’m sure you’ve all heard the buzz around the blogospheres but if you haven’t yet, here it is. Electronic Arts is pulling ALL of their content from Valve’s groundbreaking content delivery service we know as Steam. The publisher is moving all of their current and future releases to their “Origin” direct delivery service for purchasing, playing, and networking.
This does not bode well for PC players such as myself who are looking forward to Bioware’s new Star Wars MMO, as well as Battlefield 3 being on a digital distribution system using EA’s already shaky single-player kerfuffles (i.e- bad-mouthing EA on their forums equals you don’t get access to your games that you’ve bought and paid for/not being able to play single-player without a network connection). This is a direct ploy to topple Steam and their kingdom of gaming deals, content delivery, as well as community so that EA can get a slice of that action.
How this will pan out remains to be seen, but I will be keeping up to date tabs on it from now on as I am interested in both “The Old Republic” and “Battlefield 3”.
Update: 6:10PM EST- Cnet received a response from EA regarding this matter “Electronic Arts sent us this statement in regard to the removal of Crysis 2 from Steam: “It’s unfortunate that Steam has removed Crysis II from their service. This was not an EA decision or the result of any action by EA. Steam has imposed a set of business terms for developers hoping to sell content on that service–many of which are not imposed by other online game services. Unfortunately, Crytek has an agreement with another download service which violates the new rules from Steam and resulted in its expulsion of Crysis II from Steam.”
Update 2: regarding Battlefield 3 at least http://twitter.com/L_Twin/status/81013165768450049
Update 3: Regarding Origin’s TOS- http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/i0j2q/in_the_origin_tos_it_only_allows_you_two_years_to/
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